WoW Classic PvP Guide - Wreaking Havoc with your Class

Introduction

Welcome Adventurers! Welcome to our WoW Classic PvP Guide. Player versus Player scenarios can serve as the best and the most thrilling experience in your World of Warcraft Classic playtime. But as every piece of content - you will need to learn how things operate, so you don't fall on the battlefield too frequently. 

In this guide, you will learn the ins and outs of WoW Classic PvP, things that make this system complete, which class will wreck, which one will be harder to utilize, what tools can aid you in combat, and of course - expect short class guides that will cover pure basics and some class nuances.

The point of PvP

• Being in Power: Everyone wants to feel blood on their steel and being in power, especially when it comes to business scenarios and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. And while feeling powerful fighting computer-controlled enemies feels nice, the actual experience lies in competing against players just like you, and slowly rising through ranks of PvP scene. 

• Faction War: Alliance and Horde are at war. Why not show this through player activities? Gathering up an army of guild members and Pick-up Groups and riding together towards enemy cities murdering anyone in sight while not peaceful and family-friendly - it's just the best feeling. Don't be a pacifistic sheep, smash those weaklings from the Alliance, or those savages from the Horde and show them who the boss is!

• They Know Who You Are: A time will come when you do something incredible, something that other people will recognize as epic. Be it a play that turned the entire battle around allowing your Faction to win, or being an absolute Raid boss that no one can deal with in a fair fight. Or maybe you were in an unfair battle, in an unwinnable scenario, and you came out on top? Whatever you do that is unspeakable - people will start to notice, and slowly but surely, people might grow to recognize you, know you, like you, and absolutely love you. They might even join your guild wanting to play with you as your brothers and sisters in arms. 

• World Bosses: It will be mandatory for players to be good at PvP to be successful at World Bosses. These enemies are available for both factions at the same time. Imagine this, you gather up your guild of Orcs, Taurens, Forsaken, and Trolls to kill a World Boss. There are 80 people willing to participate. You see the Boss, and it turns out that 160 players want to attend. You see the players of the enemy faction appear out of the blue, or red, and they want to kill the boss for that sweet loot as well. So you clash, you do one wipe and prepare to hit the boss. But those Alliance players came back, and this time - your Faction gets wiped. It's a series of back and forth wipes with breaks for fighting the boss. Killing world bosses is just based around that. There's a lot of planning and PvP mechanics involved to keep your enemies away from reaching the boss.
  
  
  

• Ranking Up: WoW Classic has an Honor system that will reward you with honor points as you murder people from the enemy Faction that are close to your level. There are 14 ranks that you will be able to get through to reach the final update to Grand Marshal or High Warlord, being one of the 0.1% of players that can achieve and maintain this rank. Each rank has some sweet rewards, and you will have to be skilled, spend a lot of time on enemy territory killin' and chillin'. It's a long road, but the prestige and fame you will get through reaching this rank are truly immeasurable. And you will have to check that out in Azeroth for yourself, as its some quality feeling, that returns to you even if you lose that rank.

• Pure Fun: No one would do it if it weren't fun. Rushing into the enemy Capitol with your guildmates and slaughtering through every enemy of your faction is the thrills that you'd look for in every MMORPG. Go out there, pummel them to the ground, show them who the boss is, and have fun while doing it. You can be sure that games like that will not make you violent when you release yourself to go out and live a real life. Not at all. You can earn many friends that way during that phase. So there's that at least. Or just forget about it, log in to your server on a current patch and go towards Silithus from your mancave and survive the no nut november (nov) challenge. 

What does it take to be competitive in WoW Classic PvP?

There are lots of variables that will go into your overall Player versus Player experience. WoW Classic tends to have some basic rock-paper-scissors rules, making one class crazy powerful against the other class, and utterly helpless against the other. But not always. There are way too many little things that will determine who comes out on top in the end. Take a look at some of them: 

• You will have to know at least the basics of each class and their talents. The more you know, the better. Of course, the most important thing is to know your class and what it can do. But knowing your enemy, their strengths and weaknesses, their possible mistakes and misplays will open up more possibilities. And if you additionally know their cooldowns, and you can read their talent builds through the amount of skills and damage they dish out - then you will get high in the ranking. The last part is extraordinary and not mandatory to PvP with others successfully. However, it's a great addition to your PvP kit of some sort. But it's a thing that could turn your fun and mysterious Player versus Player scenarios into a game of numbers or chess. Depending on your point of view, it may appear as a fun and thrilling game of brains, or just a boring equation of presumed variables. 

• Adaptability. There will be many scenarios that will be completely unexpected. Sometimes you will have to completely turn your gameplay all the way around in an instant to be able to survive through the encounter and finally - win. Adapt, improvise, overcome. Simple and complicated at the same time. All of that can be condensed into one sentence - Your ability to get the most out of a constantly changing situation.

• Ultimately, there are only two actions you can take in a game. You either advance your own strategy or respond to another player's strategy. It will happen in every encounter, with every enemy that you face. Either one of you will have priority, being on the aggressive end of a fight, dictating the pace of encounter, forcing the other player to react. It's truly a game of chess, and it will depend on the playstyle of each participant, who will control the fight. 

• There are no clear ways to the victory. Some tactics can be easily countered with lucky racial procs or some counter-spells. Many abilities will work by themselves, and some will work best as counters. Keep that in mind, that using some pure utility abilities should only be done when they can give you the most value, as a reaction to specific playstyles, spell casts, and enemy movements. For example, imagine that you are playing as a Warrior against a Mage. Your biggest weakness is CC that will lock you down in place, making you unable to retaliate or deal damage whatsoever. Having a Shield Bash skill that stops spellcasting should be used only as a reaction to Frost casts. It will prevent your enemy from using anything like Cone of Cold, Blizzard, or Frost Nova, making them unable to lock you down in place. Which goes back to the first point - know your enemy's class and its possibilities. 

• We will come back to the first point again. Open World Solo PvP is fun, tis' true. However, the real fun happens in the field when you compete against enemies as a group, squad, platoon, or a whole army. Small groups will have to find a good composition to be useful in group fights. Going for a Warrior heavy-group with no healers whatsoever will most of the time rubberband you to the nearest Graveyard 99% of the time. Smart balancing of the team and its roles will be mandatory, especially at higher levels. Having good DPS or burst will be as important as Crowd Control utilities, and Heals. So always try to balance the team out. 

• Of course, you will have to study the game, learning from mistakes made by you, and by other people. Measure the enemy up. What will work, what won't? Can this person counter my Crowd Control? How much damage can they take? How much resources can I spend on this person until I switch my focus to other enemies? Those are all important questions, and with some time put into the game, you will be able to find the best answer immediately. 

There are many more things that you should know about. We've listed the most important ones, and those should lead you through combat, so you can discover the rest of the things as you go. You have the basics written right here, with some reasonable effort you will reach great heights, and maybe one day you will reach that 0.1% of players if that's your style.

WoW Classic PvP Class Tier And Class Role Rating

This entire section will be for classes, talents, and their place on the tier list in the current Classic WoW Meta-game. 

As you can see, in a scenario where everyone plays on an equal level, these classes will perform at a level presented on this tier list. If you have some trouble reading off this image, here's a simplified list for you to track:

S Tier - Frost Mage, Subtlety Rogue, Shadow Priest

A Tier - Arms Warrior, Holy Priest, Fire Mage, Destruction Warlock, Survival Hunter, Affliction Warlock, Assassin Rogue, Discipline Priest, Elemental Shaman

B Tier - Holy Paladin, Retribution Paladin, Restoration Druid, Demonology Warlock, Marksman Hunter, Restoration Shaman

C Tier - Combat Rogue, Fury Warrior, Arcane Mage, Enhancement Shaman, Feral Druid DPS + Tank

D Tier - Protection Warrior, Protection Paladin, Beast Mastery Hunter, Balance Druid. 

While the tier tree presents itself like this, it doesn't mean that you won't stand a chance against an S tier, playing as a C or D tier. You will be able to do truly amazing things if you are skilled enough, even as a low-tier class. Some people can pick a low-tier character, roll with them, and take them to an entirely new level. It just takes some skill and experience. Also, there are many examples of tierlists that may vary from patch to patch, even with this content being somewhat ever-green. Simply watch a video or two in the future about the current tierlist, so you can receive some additional guidelines, no need to keep tierlists private between us.

Class Rating

In this section, you will learn about specific classes, their strengths, and their weaknesses. No piece of content goes under the rug or cloak. It is not a bunch of guides, more like short descriptions that will give you a brief overlook of possibilities. Don't take this list too personally or seriously. Everything listed here is because of personal experience of us and our sources, so it might not be 100% true. You have pure strengths and weaknesses here. It doesn't mean that you won't be able to do something more than that. 

Skill and experience that you might possess are the two most influential variables that will allow you to turn a C tier class into an S tier class. So don't let this short guide lock you away from accomplishing more or earning your praises stealing a flag from time to time and killing enemies as a great PvP druid, just because you stick to our credentials at launch. 

Warrior PvP

True PvE Tanks and leaders of Classic WoW. How they hold their ground in PvP? Warriors are of pure dualistic nature. They are experts at bringing doom to single targets (with Sweeping Strikes and Cleave allowing them to wreak havoc on multiple targets), but their kit limits their possibilities when it comes to stickiness. What it means is that they are inconsistent. If caught - their tanky equipment will allow them to survive for a longer time, so getting CC'd won't always end with death.

Sometimes they will rush in and execute enemies one by one with ease. Sometimes they will be locked down in immobilizing Crowd Control abilities, rendering them completely useless. Even if you have your Cooldowns up, you won't be able to do much, which makes Warriors very reliant on the help of their teammates when it comes to group PvP. When it comes to World PvP, they will be crazily powerful with the right matchups in which they can't get immobilized. And they can get lackluster against Crowd Control monsters. If Warrior is allowed to deal damage - they will be the scariest monster on the battlefield.

As for Group Utility - they don't offer much. They have a minor damage buff in the form of Battle Shout. Piercing Howl and Intimidating Shout are there to help get enemies off their allies, but that's it. They offer pure offensive power, and that's about it. They require lots of attention from Healers and Debuff Dispellers, without paying much attention to their allies. At least as long as it doesn't require them taking enemies off their teammates, cause then - they can provide some much-needed peeling.  

Mage PvP

Hands down top-tier ranged damage in the entire game when it comes to both PvE and PvP. Having a group of skilled and experienced Mages will make a massive difference on the battlefield. In theory, in a choke-point, three or four mages should be able to wipe teams, it doesn't matter if it's 20, 50, or 100 people. 

Mages have powerful AoE abilities making them the best Crowd Control and Damage machines. These guys and gals are the ones who will most of the time, set up game-deciding AoE abilities. CC'ing huge packs of enemies allow for consistent wipes as well, and complemented with enormous AoE damage from Blizzard and Arcane Explosion - it makes it quick yet painful for the enemies.

Surprisingly, Mages can serve as a distraction as well since they can soak up damage like no other class. It is thanks to the Ice Block ability, which will allow Mages to get deep within the formation of the enemy group and survive. Blink in, or run in, grab some attention, deal some damage, dish out some Crowd Control abilities, and as soon as the enemy group focuses on you use Ice Block. It will not only cause enemies to burn their abilities. It will give your teammates a window of opportunity to go in and make some mess. 

As for solo PvP - they are okay if they manage to immobilize the enemy so they can safely deal damage without their Cast time being reduced by enemy attacks or interrupts. Blink will allow them to run away safely, so they are not that difficult when it comes to keeping the enemy as far away as possible. 

Rogue PvP

Rogues are true masters when it comes to picking off lone targets. Especially when it comes to Open World PvP, as in these scenarios, enemies are most of the time alone, unsuspecting of incoming danger. Their damage while not that high most of the time, is complemented with a multiple Crowd Control abilities and Poisons, that will keep their targets locked down for a very long time. Essentially, it enables Rogues to have the weakest weapons at the max level and still be able to lock down the enemy bringing them down from 100 to 0 in under 20 seconds.

When it comes to the group play - they are slightly harder to utilize. They suffer the same fate as Warriors; they can either wreck people utterly, or get locked down and killed. And while Warriors can survive due to their natural tankiness from available item-types and shields, this isn't the case for Rogues, as they will die rather quickly. 

Being useful in group fights will be a challenge, and knowing what is best for the situation will come with experience. Your job will revolve most of the time around picking off high-value targets, mainly back-line healers and some long-range damage dealers. There's lots of chaos involved in your playstyle, as you will want to engage on healers when something happens. Never initiate by yourself, use the situation, or you will die before everything starts. Wait for the right opportunity when people don't pay attention to you, and open up with Ambush on a Cloth Wearer to deal devastating amounts of damage. Healers can't heal others when they are dead, or they have to heal themselves. 

If played well, Rogues can be more valuable for the team than Warriors, who are considered the top tier for dealing single-target damage. Rogues can come out of nowhere and end the life of the most important person in the enemy group. And while Mages can do that as well by merely dishing out AoE, Rogues have different windows of opportunity. Mages can create them, using the enemy positioning. Rogues can create them using their teammates, their position, and their actions. It's quite different.

They are also experts when it comes to scouting and gathering intel. 

Hunter PvP

Hunters can be one of the most obnoxious and relentless classes in the entire game. They are annoying. They can easily tilt the enemy team with their swarm of long-range poke. Their damage is nothing special, but the distance from which they can deal it is infuriating. 

Survival Hunters will do great in solo and group-based Player versus Player scenarios, as long as they utilize their kit properly. They have multiple tools to slow their enemies, whether it's Frost Trap, Concussive Shot, Wyvern Sting, or Wing Clip. It will allow them to stay at a large distance to slowly but surely chip away the enemy's health pool. 

They will also be invaluable in group play. Frost Trap will slow all enemies by 50% in an extensive area, allowing Mages to deal more damage with their Area of Effect abilities. It's also beneficial for Melee classes, making them more prone to chase enemies successfully. 

Thanks to their skills like Far Sight or Eagle Eye - they are also on par with Rogues when it comes to scouting for the team. 

Warlock PvP

Jack-of-all-trades when it comes to PvP content. They will do great in every scenario, but they won't be the best at anything. This feat makes them flexible. 

Warlocks can soak up lots of damage with various abilities that will give them additional health, heals, and shields. They can easily assist damage dealers with both AoE and single target abilities. They can deal damage over time with various Curses, and they can do some high-damage bursts granted they can proc their Nightfall that has a 2% of proccing. 

Rule of thumb for Warlocks - they can easily top the damage charts if the fight gets longer than it should, as they dish out consistent damage all the time. And since they have some self-heal, with some help from allied Healers - they will most of the time stay alive on the battlegrounds for much longer in comparison to other classes. 

Their Crowd Control capabilities are also immense. Enemy players will run around feared for very long periods rendering them completely useless. These CCs are more situational than other classes and should be used with a plan for a good purpose that fits the current situation.

Their utility outside of pure combat is also immense. They can increase the maximum health points of their allies by increasing stamina. They can teleport whole raids from one place to the other with the Ritual of Summoning. Their Healthstones and Soulstones are invaluable in any combat scenario. And they can also scout the area similarly to Hunters. And of course - Purge will be a great way of removing magical effects and debuffs off Allies and Enemies.

Priest PvP

Absolute Top Tier for 1v1 fights, as Shadow Priests can deal immense amount of damage, and players tend not to stack Shadow Damage Resistance that often. Their power is, however, significantly diminished in the group play. It is because they will be out of mana shortly after the beginning of the fight if they want to deal a lot of damage. 

It is why during group play, they should switch to a classic Priest gameplay - providing much needed heals in all possible forms. Area of Effect Heals? You got that. Point and click heal? Got it. Healing over time? It's there for you, as well. 

While fights will happen because of other classes, Priests will allow these fights to last. They will keep the most valuable teammates alive for a longer time. With a reliable offensive team that is equal to the enemy group, when no one makes mistakes - each combat is a battle of smart heals and healing efficiency. One missed heal or Resurrection might mean an utter defeat for the entire team. Losing one Warrior won't mean much, but losing one Priest can decide the whole encounter, so there's lots of responsibility involved. 

Druid PvP

Quite hard to kill in solo encounters thanks to their speed, tankiness, and self-healing abilities. However, when it comes to dealing damage, only Feral DPS Druids will do something meaningful, while still being weaker than other Melee DPS Classes. They are not the best class to roll with if you want to go for 1v1 PvP.

In Group Player versus Player scenarios, Druids will be best as pure tanks. Their natural tankiness in Bear Form will greatly increase their sturdiness, allowing them to keep enemies busy with their presence on the battlefield alone. 

They won't serve any good purpose as CC machines and Damage since their kits don't allow that. It will be hard to stay competitive or even relevant as these classes if you want to go with an off-meta playstyle.

Druids will also be able to bring some healing and buff utility outside of tanking. They can heal allies just fine, with some buffs here and there. They can also Resurrect fallen allies, which shouldn't be overlooked. Due to their speed and Tracking capabilities, they might be useful as quite Durable scouts, as things might go sour from time to time.

Shaman PvP

Masters of pure utility on the side of the Horde. They can heal, they can buff, they can clear CC and various other debuffs, but the most crucial thing - totems.

A few totems will be mandatory for a few things. The most notable ones are:

Mana Tide Totem - Best used in a group of your healers, as it will grant a stable mana regeneration for every healer standing in its 20-yard radius. It's a good bait for your priests to the group in a single small space, making them an easy target, so try to avoid it.

Tremor Totem - Amazing totem that will remove Fear, Charm, and Sleep from your allies in a quite big radius. A good thing to put down before enemy warriors dive in with Howl of Terror. It will make their attempts to CC your most important people completely useless.

Windwall Totem - It is a godsend against good Mages and Hunters. Each ranged attack incoming your way will have its damage dealt reduced by a small amount. But that small amount will reduce the damage taken greatly, as there are multiple enemies ranged casters and auto-attackers. It's a must-have on the frontlines in various scenarios. 

Windfury Totem - The strongest combat-oriented buff in the entire game. After placing a totem, each Melee attacker in range will get a chance of an additional attack for their main-hand weapon. This attack will have its power increased, making a significant difference on the battlefield, especially for slow two-handed weapon users. 

Paladin PvP

Paladin is an excellent class if a player knows what they are doing, as they are tough to utilize. Sometimes Paladins will try themselves as a frontline DPS and fail miserably just because enemy Rogues and Warriors have way too many tools to deal with enemies in the most brutal way. Don't get it wrong. Paladins surely can serve as the Retribution DPS. However, they have a limited kit when it comes to dealing damage, as it will all depend on basic attacks and lucky procs that may or may not win your encounter.

The strength of a Paladin lies in his buffs and heals. They are very mana efficient, they can easily compete against priests when it comes to healing, and their buffs are invaluable. They specialize in healing single targets and keeping them powerful and alive through the entire encounter. 

When it comes to solo - it's a mixed bag. Retribution DPS will be able to do something here and there. With some procs, they could finish every fight. But their true strength lies in their survivability. While Warriors and Druids can withstand lots of hits due to their tankiness, Paladins can stay alive and kicking for a long time due to their heals, buffs, and a bubble ability. 

Their main strength in 1v1 fights is pure preservation. You can basically outlive your enemies as long as you can keep your distance when you need to heal yourself up.

Honor System

Classic WoW has the Honor System available. It makes PvP have a higher meaning than mindlessly killing enemies on various battlegrounds and in the Open World PvP just for the sake of killing. 

Honor system gathers Honorable and Dishonorable Kills to compare the battle of the prowess of players in PvP Combat Scenarios. As you compete against other players in any PvP content, whether it comes to the battleground, Open World PvP, PvP Raids, with each kill you will get some points, or have them removed depending on a few variables, which not only counts your statistics but statistics of your target as well. 

Honorable Kills & CP

Almost every time you kill a player from the opposing faction, you will be awarded some Honor points, as long as your kill fulfills specific requirements. Your enemy has to be at least within 10 levels of you (grey enemies won't award anything), and the number of points will be determined by CP (Contribution Points). 

Contribution Points are a particular stat that shows the player's progress within a week. You gain these points similarly to Honor, by participating in PvP, be it Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley, or just pure World PvP for PvP Rank and PVP Honor. These points are stable but will determine the number of Honor Points that you will get after killing a particular enemy.

Having lower CP than your target will grant you more honor, as your target is more experienced when it comes to time spent on PvP. Respectively, being experienced and fighting someone who has just reached level 60 and has 0 Contribution Points will reward close to no Honor Points as they fight wasn't fair. 

Honor Points will be far more valuable at level 60, than at level 30. For example, you can kill an enemy that is equal level to you at level 30 and 60, and at 60, you will get far more points than you would've gotten at level 30.

You can kill various players, but killing the same player over and over again, corpse camping at their skeleton will not be effective in the long run - because of diminishing returns. With each subsequent kill on the same enemy, you will reduce the amount of Honor you get from them to zero in 5 kills. The timer resets every 24 hours, so you will be able to kill them again for some sweet honor if you find them and abuse them again.

You don't have to be the one to kill your enemies to get the Honor points. You can be in a party with someone. And if that someone kills a member of the enemy faction - you will get some points, as long as you are close to the kill. The higher level you are, the more Honor Points you will get.

Don't kill NPCs, as scoring a Dishonorable Kill will reduce your Honor by a lot. And of course - killing someone higher in the overall ranking will grant you more Honor. 

Honor Mechanics

Honor has even more mechanics that will make your race towards rank 14 a little bit harder. You see, honor has a weekly system that will punish players who like to slack off. By getting Honor, your PvP Reputation Points will increase with each kill. However, each week, the number of your Honor points will always decrease by 20%. Reaching ranks won't be that hard in the beginning, but keeping them will be a challenge. The grind begins around rank 11. If you want to progress anywhere near the rank 14, you have to share the account and risk the ban or play more than 10 hours every day.  

In theory, you should be able to reach rank 14 in 12 weeks, granted you manage to gain 13,000 Ranking Points every week. However - this will be hard. With each week, the amount of RP will decrease more and more, each time taking 20% off your collected amount. It won't hurt that much at 10,000 points. But it will hurt like hell when you manage to reach above 60,000 points after you reach Rank 14.  

It's a hard work that will require lots of your free time and even more effort. So make sure you don't prioritize reaching and keeping rank 14 over your responsibilities, job, or your partner. Keep it healthy, so your mind stays in the right place.  

Summary

It is the end of our WoW Classic PvP Guide. There's a long way ahead of you if you want to reach the true mastery of your class or the highest rank in Honor. So go out there now, wreak havoc on weaklings, or protect those who need help. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter if you want to be updated to our guides schedule. Anything you do, make sure you have fun, and that you are ruining your opponent's day!